Emergency Youth Shelter: How BGC Okanagan Prevents Youth Homelessness
Picture downtown Kelowna late at night. Transit has stopped. Most storefronts are dark. A teen stands outside BGC Okanagan’s emergency youth shelter, clutching a dead phone with nowhere else to go.
He isn’t looking for a bed. He just needs a way to get home.
Staff opens the door and welcome him in. They charge his phone. They offer something to eat, a drink, clean clothing and a safe place to wait. By the time his ride arrives, he’s warm, fed and connected. He never shows up in the “overnight stay” statistics.
But this is exactly why the shelter has to exist.
“When a youth faces an unexpected change in their care plan, the shelter is there to ensure they don’t fall through the cracks … before a crisis becomes homelessness,” The Bridge Youth & Family Services director of service Michele Hopkins says.
BGC Okanagan’s emergency youth shelter and shelter diversion program are the middle of a much bigger safety net for young people in the region. Alongside early intervention work like Upstream Kelowna, they form the heart of BGC Okanagan’s Prevent Youth Homelessness campaign, which aims to raise $150,000 to keep these life-changing supports running and growing.
Your donation helps reach more youth, steady more families and make sure every young person in the Okanagan has a safe place to turn.
When Everything Falls Apart at Night
Homelessness doesn’t happen on a schedule or during business hours. It happens after an argument that went too far. After violence. After a mental health crisis. After a young person is discharged from hospital or stranded far from home with no way back.
“The shelter works like the emergency room at the hospital,” BGC Okanagan youth, family and community programs vice-president Sarah MacKinnon says. “Nobody plans to rely on it, but the community needs it to be there when everything falls apart in the middle of the night.”
For more than 20 years, BGC Okanagan’s emergency youth shelter has been there in those moments. The 10-bed shelter, housed in the downtown youth centre, is for youth ages 13 to 19. Occasionally some 19- to 24-year-olds supported when it is safer and more appropriate than the adult system.
Inside, youth find more than a bed. They receive crisis counselling, food, showers, clean clothing, access to phones, transportation support and calm adults who refuse to let them face crisis alone.
Last year alone:
• 450 safe bed nights provided
• 44 youth safely diverted back to family or trusted supports
• seven lives saved through life-saving intervention by staff
This is not a “nice to have” program. It is an essential service.
Shelter diversion: Preventing Homelessness at the Door
Not every youth who arrives needs a bed. Since 2016, every youth who comes to the shelter is first met with shelter diversion.
Before offering a bed, staff works to identify safer alternatives within the youth’s own network: family members, caregivers or other trusted adults. When possible, youth return to safe housing with support, while BGC Okanagan helps families stabilize through crisis.
Without the emergency youth shelter and diversion services, 79 more youth in the past year would have been pushed deeper into homelessness, into adult systems not designed for them.
This is the only dedicated emergency youth shelter in the Okanagan. Over time, the needs of youth arriving have changed. Many now face chronic housing instability, mental health struggles, abrupt exits from systems of care, developmental barriers and other types of victimization.
To respond safely, BGC Okanagan has increased staffing and invested in advanced training. The result is a growing gap between what it costs to run a safe, developmentally appropriate youth shelter and what traditional funding covers.
Donations help fill that gap by providing:
• Safe shelter, food, clothing and basic needs
• Shelter diversion that keeps youth connected to family when possible
• Trauma-informed, youth-specific support
• Help for families to stay together and stabilize
Within the downtown youth centre, the shelter is part of a broader continuum that includes daytime drop-in, recreation and skill-building programs, case management and counselling.
A Community Decision
An emergency youth shelter is an essential part of any just and functional housing system. In communities without youth shelters, agencies like Interior Health have seen far higher rates of sexual exploitation, including sex trafficking, as young people trade safety and shelter for survival.
“In my role supporting young people, I’ve seen first-hand how essential BGC’s shelter is as a safety net,” Hopkins says. “Knowing this resource exists means that young people stay safe, supported and connected to the help they need.”
For the teen without a phone, the shelter meant getting home safely.
For others, it means surviving the night.
With it, youth get a starting point for healing, connection and stability. Together, as a community, we can keep this safety net strong, while also investing upstream so fewer young people ever need a bed.
The Prevent Youth Homelessness campaign aims to raise $150,000 to keep the emergency youth shelter, shelter diversion and early intervention work by Upstream Kelowna available when youth need them most. If you believe no young person should face crisis alone, you can help this safety net stay strong by donating today at bgco.ca/prevent-youth-homelessness.